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All Chapters of He Gave Her Everything That Was Mine: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

“You were quiet at dinner.”Luca glanced at me at a red light, one hand resting on the steering wheel. Behind us, his security car stopped at a discreet distance.“I’m tired.”He reached over and covered my hand with his. His thumb moved over my knuckles in the familiar, absent-minded way that used to make me feel loved.“Still upset about your birthday?”I looked out at the wet pavement.“I told you. There was a threat at the bridge. My men wouldn’t let the car through.”I slipped my hand free.“All right.”I knew there had been no threat. I knew exactly which hospital he had been at, and whose coat he had been carrying.He let out a breath, taking my silence for forgiveness.“Bianca has a chance to secure backing for her importing business. Some of the families are meeting her tomorrow. I’ve told her she can use Bellavista.”I turned toward him.“You’ve told her what?”Bellavista was the waterfront estate my grandfather had left to me alone. I had spent two years restoring it. Every

Chapter 2

The November wind cut through my coat as I walked past the gate.Luca’s driver straightened beside the car. I kept walking until I reached the main road and flagged a cab.My phone vibrated before we reached the hotel.Bianca.Elena, please don’t fight with Luca because of me. I’ll tell the investors I can’t use Bellavista. If they withdraw, I’ll manage somehow.Another message followed.He just feels responsible for me. After what happened to my parents, he can’t bear to see me struggle. Please don’t blame him for having a good heart.I stared at the screen.She carried a handbag worth more than her first year’s tuition. My mother had bought it after Bianca cried about never having anything that was truly hers.I blocked her number.The next morning, I went to Bellavista.Black cars lined the drive. Two men I didn’t recognize stood outside the entrance. Through the glass doors, I could see workers covering my wedding floor plan with tables and display cases.A banner above the stairca

Chapter 3

My father took almost a minute to answer.“Elena. I’m about to go into a meeting.”“Why is Bianca’s name on my European proposal?”A pause. Then the patient voice he used when he had already decided something.“I meant to tell you.”“You meant to tell me after it was done.”“You already run our most profitable legitimate accounts. You have a future with Luca. Bianca needs a foothold.”“It’s my work.”“And she’s your sister.”I sat on a bench outside a pharmacy. My ankle had begun to swell inside my boot.“I spent six months on that application. I built those forecasts. You can’t just hand her my career.”“This is one contract, Elena.”“One I earned.”His patience vanished.“Her father was on my payroll. Her mother was at that warehouse because of us. They went back for you when they could have saved themselves.”“Were you there?”“What?”“When they went back. Did you see them?”The silence changed.“Bruno gave me the report,” he said. “Bianca told your mother she saw them go inside. Wh

Chapter 4

Bianca didn’t need a public audience to destroy my name.In our world, twelve influential men around a table could do more damage than a million strangers.The following evening, she stood in Luca’s private club and told the consortium that I had assaulted her. She said I had canceled her launch at Bellavista because I couldn’t bear to see her succeed, forcing her to move the event at the last minute.She brought photographs of the bruises on her knees.Someone recorded her statement. By seven, it was circulating through every family’s private channels.The Moretti princess was unstable. Spoiled. Dangerous to do business with.My division director called at eight.“The board has voted to suspend your signing authority pending a review.”“On whose recommendation?”He didn’t answer.“Tell me.”“Your father’s. He thought a few days away would ease the situation.”I looked at the notebook beside my hotel bed. Six months of routes, insurance requirements, projections. A life I had tried to

Chapter 5

Twelve hours after leaving the hotel, I unlocked a small apartment in Vienna.There were no guards at the entrance. Nobody checked who I was visiting. A neighbor held the outer door for me and went back to carrying her groceries.I had forgotten a door could be just a door.Adrian Keller had left a key with the building manager and a welcome folder on the kitchen table. He had taught me international trade compliance before leaving my father’s company to start his own legitimate logistics firm.For months, he had been offering me a position.I had kept saying I couldn’t leave before the wedding.Now my signed employment agreement was in the folder. So were the work-authorization documents we had completed while I was still telling myself I wouldn’t need them.Beside them lay a note.Your first day is Monday. Until then, sleep.I stood in the quiet kitchen and cried for the first time.Not because I wanted to go back.Because there was finally no one watching who would call it selfish.

Chapter 6

Luca went back to his office and laid my engagement ring on his desk.He had spent four months finding the stone. He remembered the jeweler suggesting something larger, and how firmly he had refused. I hated rings that caught on my clothes. He had known that.He knew how I took my coffee. Which side of the bed I slept on. That I went quiet when I was hurt and angry when I was frightened.He had loved me in a hundred small, attentive ways.Then he had used all that knowledge to convince himself I would survive the things he did to me.His assistant knocked.“We found a public staff announcement. Keller European Logistics.”He set a tablet on the desk.My name appeared beneath a new title: Director of Cross-Border Operations. Vienna.Luca read the short biography. My qualifications. My previous projects. Nothing about the Morettis. Nothing about him.“How long has she been planning this?”“I don’t know.”“She couldn’t have arranged a job, a move, everything, overnight.”“No.”His assista

Chapter 7

Two weeks into my new job, I completed my first contract without anyone mentioning my family.The client asked hard questions. I answered them. We revised two clauses, agreed on the numbers, and shook hands.It should have been ordinary.I walked back to my desk feeling as if I had recovered something that belonged to me.Adrian stopped by with two coffees.“Well done, Elena.”Not good for a Moretti. Not surprising for someone who had everything.Just well done.My mother had been sending messages through the attorney. Some begged me to come home. Others said they had made mistakes. There were no more demands that I apologize to Bianca.I wasn’t ready to answer them.That afternoon, I received a message I did read.Daniel Rossi. The firefighter who had carried me out.The attorney had asked whether I wanted contact. I had said yes.I’m glad to hear you’re well. You don’t owe me anything. I was doing my job.I read the last sentence until the words blurred.At almost the same time, Luca

Chapter 8

The police arrived at Bellavista the following morning.Bianca was there collecting stock under the property manager’s supervision. When the officers asked her to come with them, she insisted they call Luca.The false purchase orders had become a fraud investigation. The stolen proposal and the campaign against me were already in the hands of lawyers.“Tell him who I am,” she said, clutching her handbag. “He’ll explain.”Across the street, Luca sat in his car with the window half lowered.He watched her look for him.For once, he didn’t move.Afterward, he went to my parents’ house.My mother was in the sitting room. My father stood by the fireplace, holding the photograph of Daniel Rossi carrying me out of the smoke.They had had two weeks to learn I was gone.Now they had to learn what they had done to keep the wrong daughter happy.Luca placed the rest of the evidence on the table.There were the stolen contracts. The messages to Bruno. The bills for designer bags paid from the educ

Chapter 9

It rained all afternoon in Vienna.I left the office with my umbrella open, thinking about the contract I needed to review before Monday. Lukas from our risk team had offered me a ride to the café where several colleagues were meeting us.I saw the black sedan before I saw Luca.He stepped out into the rain without a coat.For a moment, I remembered him at seventeen, waiting outside my school because I’d missed the bus. He had been soaked that day too. I had thought no one would ever make me feel safer.“Elena.”I stopped beneath the office awning.“Luca. What are you doing here?”He seemed to flinch at how calmly I said his name.“Your attorney said you’d received the records.”“I have.”“Bianca’s under investigation. The consortium has withdrawn her award. Your work is credited to you again, and Bellavista is secure.”“Good.”He took a step closer.“Your parents are devastated. They know what they did. Your mother keeps your bracelet beside her bed.”I tightened my grip on the umbrel

Chapter 10

I stood beneath the awning and listened to the rain.“No,” I said. “I don’t think you leave seven years behind all at once.”Hope moved across his face.I hated that I could still read him so easily.“But I can stop giving you the next seven.”He shook his head.“I never meant to make you feel disposable.”“You kept telling me I had everything. Then, every time she wanted something, you took it from me. My home. My work. Your trust.”“I thought I could make it up to you.”“With what? A bigger wedding? More roses?”He couldn’t answer.“You knew I’d forgive things from you that I wouldn’t forgive from anyone else. You used that, even if you didn’t call it that.”His eyes filled.“I was wrong.”“Yes.”“I can change.”“I hope you do.”He took the words as gently as if I had struck him.I looked at the man I had loved since I was seventeen. There were things I would probably always miss. His hand finding mine in his sleep. The terrible coffee he insisted he made well.Those things had been

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